What makes a healthy place

Healthy eating. In many communities, the main option for a quick dinner after a long day at work is McDonald's or Burger King. Chapel Hill and Durham have options, says Active Living; if you're headed from work in Chapel Hill, swing by Whole Foods and graze the salad bar; in Durham, there's the organic deli at Fowler's.

Flexible workplaces. In addition to providing showers, locker rooms, bike racks and onsite fitness centers, it's important that the workplace itself be flexible -- with flexible work hours, flexible break times and the flexibility to let workers create in an environment where they aren't chained to a metal desk under a fluorescent light.

Traffic-calming devices. Those speed bumps and traffic circles? Drivers on a mission may find them annoying, but they truly are calming to pedestrians. "People aren't going to feel comfortable walking in a built environment if cars are speeding by them," explains Cara Crisler, a project manager with Active Living By Design. Hence: Speed bumps/humps + traffic circles = slower traffic = more pedestrian-friendly community. Take a walk through Chapel Hill's Meadowmont or Southern Village planned communities if you need convincing.

Sidewalks. Once they've been settled by those traffic- calming devices, Chapel Hill and Durham residents can feel comfortable taking advantage of high sidewalk-to-road ratios. Chapel Hill's is one mile of sidewalk for every 1.8 miles of road, Durham's is one mile of sidewalk for every 2.7 miles of road. (For the sake of full disclosure, Alison Carpenter, with Durham's Transportation Department, says a consultant who assisted with a recent sidewalk inventory said the ideal ratio is 1.75 miles of sidewalk to every one mile of road.)

Fit workplaces. Do the community's four largest employers do what they can to promote a healthy workplace? They better if they're in the health-care field. Thus, Chapel Hill scores big with UNC Hospitals and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina (as well as the educationally focused University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools), while Durham has Duke University and Medical Center and drug-maker GlaxoSmithKline, in addition to the Durham Public Schools and IBM (onsite fitness facility).

Healthy school lunches. Elementary school kids in Durham can have a chef salad if they like; in Chapel Hill, they can have a vegetarian chef salad.

Festivals. Festivals? Like the ill-fated Apple Chill in Chapel Hill? No, not like that. Rather, these are the kinds of festivals and events that encourage folks to get out and pump some fresh air into their lungs. Durham in particular proves itself a Fit Community on this score, with the upcoming Festival for the Eno (Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday at West Point on the Eno Park), the Durham Senior Games and the police department's annual bike rodeo.

Trails. Sidewalks provide what Active Living's Mark Dessauer calls "immediate opportunities to be physically active, by walking to school, walking errands, walking the dog." But it's also important to have trails for a more intense workout. Durham, for instance, has the north end of the American Tobacco Trail, which runs from downtown south to the Chatham County border (with a mile or so interruption at I-40 near the Streets at Southpoint mall). Chapel Hill has 12 miles of greenway that connect with sidewalks and bike lanes to create a secondary transportation network.

Gym class. Start 'em young, says Active Living, and Durham does. Kids in Durham Public Schools get a minimum of 150 minutes a week of phys ed.

Is there a park nearby? Half of Chapel Hill's and Durham's residents live within a quarter mile of a park or multi-use recreation facility.

We may have been slack before, but no more. Both Durham and Chapel Hill require that all new developments -- housing, commercial, schools -- have either sidewalks and/or bike lanes.

Are the majority of your schools tobacco-free? This would seem a no-brainer, but apparently not. Both towns answered yes when asked if the majority of their schools were tobacco-free. Durham went the extra millimeter to note that all of its schools are tobacco-free.